Dealing with ash build-up while cooking all day.

[mrbucky]

First-time poster here. Curious to know if anyone had any tips on dealing with ash build-up while they cook. To keep temps high I add a lot of wood. I'm using cherry wood and it burns fast so the ash builds up pretty quickly and as the day goes the seems to smother the fire a bit and it doesn't burn as hot. Do you stop and sweep some of the ash out or just push it out of the way? Any advice is much appreciated.

[MarkJerling]

I've found that the more I use my oven, the less wood I use. I've learnt that bringing the oven's temperature up slowly seems to work best, so now, if I plan on pizzas in the evening, I make a small fire all day. By the time I'm cooking, the oven is so well heated that a small amount of additional firewood keeps things going well. As such, I've never felt the need to remove ashes while cooking. But, when I used to make bigger fires to heat the oven more quickly, I found that what worked best was to simply push the ash to the one side.

[Petter]

+1 on Marks comment. Also, use thinner logs, they burn more efficient and leave less ash.

[mrbucky]

I guess I need to start my fires earlier. I'm usually trying to get up to around 750 and keep it there so it's a lot of piling on the wood. I'll need to try thinner wood as well.

[MarkJerling]

How long before cooking do you start your fire? With a 3 hour fire I use more wood than with a 6-7 hour fire but the 6 hour fire heats the oven far better and I get to 750F easily (at the floor) and over a 1000F at the top of the dome. Unless we're doing lots of pizzas I don't really need to keep the fire going at that point.

[sorianofire]

6months in lots of weekend soccer team parties. Learned a ton. I’ve not removed ash. Use copper brush and push it off to side. Your dough hydration level also needs to match temps. High hydration lower temp. For this oven floor commonly ends up at 700. Less moisture in dough works well. Use kiln dried firewood. Higher heat. Measurable higher heat. That reduces logs needed. Buy it Lowe’s. Read label and make sure it says kiln dried. If I was like maybe 10 hours in I would use a tin bucket and fireplace shovel kit to remove some of the ash. Not all of it. The use copper brush to clean surface. Damp rag around peel to completely remove ash. Experiment with flour vs cornmeal on peel to release pizza. Different textures.